CAPUT XI. Quod multi professionem Christianam verbis tantum teneant, sed operibus negligant.
The Neglect of Christian Works
Jonas introduces the problem that many profess Christianity with words but neglect its works, contrasting worldly diligence with spiritual laziness.
If people strain so eagerly to learn, and so keenly to understand, the rights of worldly laws that mortals have issued for settling the business of courtroom disputes, and so on, as in chapter1 20 of Book I of On the Institution2 of the Laity,3 through the words "they are held to be observed without pretense."4 But that faith alone advances no one to the kingdom of heaven has already been shown in the earlier chapters. Yet the Christian profession is miserably neglected by many people and in many ways, because of fleshly pleasures, because of this world's most varied vanities, and because of the most twisted habits; and the more emptily they serve these, the less they give themselves to the works of the Christian profession. But if the Acts, and the rest as in the same chapter5 20 of Book I, up through: they praise the skill of the cooks for the most luxurious foods prepared for them.6
The Perverse Priority of Human Law
Jonas marvels that human laws are obeyed out of fear, while God's easy yoke is scorned, leading to spiritual ruin and a decline from early Christian devotion.
There's also something else in the Christian religion that deserves great wonder: human laws—which generally strike more fear into people who want to sin than Christ's commands do—seem to have greater force than the divine ones, even though those human laws free those who obey them from temporal punishment, while these divine commands free them from eternal punishment as well. When someone who currently holds the heights of royal or imperial dignity, ruling other mortals for a time, issues an edict that he wants carefully heard and faithfully and shrewdly carried out by those under him—who among his subjects, I ask, doesn't listen eagerly and strive to obey his commands? But who would be so bold as to presume to scorn it, except at his own peril? So one cannot wonder enough why people are so struck with blindness that they set aside their Creator's law with such reckless daring. People make laws, and their subjects obey them. God, the Creator of all things, who rules forever, who does not grow greater by any increase of ours, in whose hand we are like clay in the potter's hand, has given a law so that souls may gain salvation—and hearing it is scorned; and if it is heard with the body's ear, it is not taken in with the heart's ear; and if it is taken in with the heart's ear, it is not carried out in deed. But what excuse will Christians be able to offer the Lord—those who accept the judgment of worldly law out of worldly fear, yet refuse to bow their necks under Christ's yoke, which is easy and light and leads to eternal life? The Lord says: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matt.✦7 11:28).8 And yet people refuse to come to One so great who calls them, to learn humility and gentleness from him, and to take up his yoke. Those who do this—what else are they doing but falling short of their own salvation? How wretched and deadly that is cannot be put into words. Anyone can clearly see that the Christian profession in our day is not practiced by most people with the same devotion and religious care as it was by the early Christians.9
The Call to Return and the Warning of Captivity
Jonas urges believers to examine their hearts, keep baptismal vows, and return to God through works, warning that continued neglect invites spiritual captivity like Israel's.
So then, this rule of faith—briefly discussed above, and more fully in the already mentioned Acts of the Apostles—the apostles, or rather Christ through the apostles, decreed that the faithful should hold to it. So if Christ taught this, why is it despised through so many and such perverse customs, invented to suit some people's fancy? And although, with God's help, this rule is truly received, still some people neglect it in various ways by how they live. We know this has happened because a custom that must be deeply lamented has crept in among certain people. Without giving the proper attention to the divine laws to which they submitted themselves through faith, they make a law for themselves out of what they like—even when it is not lawful—and also out of what is lawful but not helpful, and they believe they can live blamelessly according to whatever they please.✦1011 With this established, every believer must search the depths of his own heart; and if he does not adorn the faith of Christ he has received with works, he should know that he is breaking the covenant he made with God in baptism. So while he still has time, with the help of Christ's grace, let him take up the way of salvation again—not in words only, but in works. So it is no wonder if the divine sword runs wild where the faith of Christ is held not in truth, but only for show.12 For we always say we want to seek God and ask his pardon for the wrongs we've done in the past—and we lie, because we keep putting off doing what we say. Every day we also say we want to seek the way of God—from which we wandered by sinning—so that we may return to him by it; and God has set that way before our eyes, and we refuse to walk on it. Who, if they use their reason at all, doesn't know that we should always choose what is better and despise what is inferior? We are worn down, deservedly because of our iniquity, by the various disasters of divine vengeance, and we refuse to turn back to the One who strikes us, fulfilling that prophetic word: "And the people did not return to the One who struck them, and they did not seek the Lord of hosts" (Isa. 9:13). What's more, we have every reason to fear that for us—so often warned and scourged by the Lord through the denunciations or threats of the Law and the prophets, and of the Gospels and the apostles, yet still refusing to return truly to God—the same end may at last come that came upon the people of Israel when they mocked the Lord's prophets and refused to turn back to God. The Lord long and patiently bore their iniquities, and at the last, unwilling to be propitiated toward them, allowed them to go away into captivity under the Assyrians.13 And 'Assyrians' means, and is interpreted as, 'those who take captive.'14 So we must watch carefully and take care that, just as they fell into captivity in the body, we—God forbid—do not fall into that same captivity in the spirit.
Read the original Latin
Si mundanarum legum jura ob jurgiorum forensium negotia dirimenda a mortalibus edita, homines avidissime discere et intelligere acutissime satagunt, et caetera ut cap. 20 libri I de Inst. laic. usque ad indissimulanter observanda censentur.
Quod vero fides sola neminem ad regnum provehat coelorum, jam in superioribus capitulis demonstratum est. Verum professio Christiana a multis et in multis propter delectationes carnales, et propter diversissimas hujus saeculi vanitates, et perversissimas consuetudines, miserabiliter negligitur; quibus quanto plus inaniter inserviunt, tanto minus operibus Christianae professionis vacant. Quod si Acta, et caetera ut in eodem cap. 20 libri I usque ad erga lautissimos sibi cibos praeparatos artem collaudant coquorum.
Est et aliud in Christiana religione magna admiratione dignum; eo quod leges humanae, quae plerumque peccare volentibus terrorem potius quam Christi praecepta incutiunt, majorem vim quam divinae habere videantur; cum utique illae sibi parentes a temporali, hae quoque ab aeterna liberent poena. Cum nunc quispiam regiae aut imperialis dignitatis apicem tenens, caeteris mortalibus temporaliter imperans, aliquod edictum proponit, quod a sibi subditis et audiri diligenter, et impleri fideliter sagaciterque velit; quis, rogo, subditorum non inhianter obaudit, illiusque jussionibus obtemperare satagit? Quis vero in tantam audaciam prorumpere audet, qui id nisi ad suum discrimen contemnere praesumat? Unde satis mirari non potest cur homines tanta caecitate percussi existunt, ut Creatoris sui legem tam temerario ausu postponant. Homines condunt leges, et a subditis custodiuntur; Deus creator omnium aeternaliter imperans, qui nostro augmento non crescit, in cujus manu ita sumus sicut lutum in manu figuli, dedit legem ob salutem animarum capessendam, et audiri contemnitur; et si aure corporis auditur, aure cordis non percipitur; et si aure cordis percipitur, opere non impletur. Quid autem excusationis Christiani Domino afferre poterunt, qui mundanae legis censuram ob mundialem metum suscipiunt, et jugo Christi, quod suave et leve est, et ad vitam ducit aeternam, colla submittere renuunt? Dominus dicit: Venite ad me, omnes qui laboratis et onerati estis, et ego reficiam vos: tollite jugum meum super vos, et discite a me quia mitis sum et humilis corde; et invenietis requiem animabus vestris. Jugum enim meum suave est, et onus meum leve (Matth.
XI, 28) . Et venire ad talem tantumque vocantem, et ab eo humilitatem et mansuetudinem discere, ejusque jugum suscipere recusatur. Hoc qui faciunt, quid aliud faciunt, nisi a salute propria deficiunt? Quod quam miserabile et exitiale sit explicari non potest. Perspicue sane animadverti potest quod professio Christiana modernis temporibus a plerisque non sic devote ac religiose colitur, sicut a priscis colebatur Christianis.
Hanc itaque fidei regulam, de qua superius breviter, et in memoratis Actis apostolorum plenissime dictum est, apostoli, imo per apostolos Christus tenendam fidelibus censuit. Si igitur hanc Christus docuit, utquid tot tantisque perversis consuetudinibus ad votum quorumdam repertis contemnitur? Quae quamvis Deo annuente veraciter percipiatur, operibus tamen a nonnullis diversis negligitur modis, et idcirco accidisse cognoscimus, quia irrepsit inter quosdam nimium deflenda consuetudo, qui utique, legibus divinis quibus se per fidem subdiderunt non ut oportet animadversis, quod libet et licitum non est, sed et quod licet, non tamen expedit, legem sibi faciunt, et secundum id quod libitum fuerit, vivere se posse inculpabiliter credunt. His ita praemissis, necesse est ut unusquisque fidelis penetralia cordis sui rimetur, et si fidem Christi quam percepit, operibus non exornat, pacti quod cum Deo in baptismate fecit se praevaricatorem esse cognoscat. Dum ergo tempus habet, Christi adjuvante gratia, viam salutis non verbis tantum, sed operibus repetat. Non ergo mirum est si mucro divinus grassetur, ubi fides Christi non veraciter, sed simulanter tenetur. Semper enim dicimus nos Deum velle quaerere, et de praeteritis admissis ab eo veniam postulare, et mentimur; quia quod dicimus, adimplere differimus. Quotidie etiam dicimus viam Dei, a qua peccando exorbitavimus, nos quaerere velle, per quam ad Deum revertamur, et Deus stravit eam in conspectu oculorum nostrorum, et per eam ingredi contemnimus.
Quis ratione utens ignorat nos debere semper potiora eligere, et viliora contemnere? Diversis divinae ultionis cladibus merito nostrae iniquitatis atterimur, et ad eum a quo percutimur reverti contemnimus, adimplentes illud propheticum: Et populus non est reversus ad percutientem se, et Dominum exercituum non exquisierunt (Isa. IX, 13) . Verendum porro satis est, ne nobis toties a Domino per legales et propheticas, atque evangelicas et apostolicas denuntiationes sive comminationes, admonitis et flagellatis, et ad Deum veraciter redire contemnentibus, illud tandem proveniat quod Israelitico populo prophetis Domini insultanti, et ad Deum reverti contemnenti, provenit; quorum iniquitates Dominus diu patienter pertulit, et ad extremum iis propitiari nolens, eos in Assyriorum captivitatem migrare permisit. Assyriinamque significant et interpretantur captivantes. Unde satis vigilanter providendum est ne sicut illi corporaliter, ita nos, quod absit, spiritualiter in eorum deveniamus captivitatem.
Scripture echoes
Notes
- 1 ↩Printed text ends mid-clause with an abbreviated cross-reference ('et caetera ut cap.'); the following fragments complete the citation rather than a free-standing sentence.
- 2 ↩Abbreviated reference fragment: '20 libri I de Inst.' Continuity with s3 yields 'chapter 20 of Book I of On the Institution of the Laity' (De institutione laicali).
- 3 ↩Abbreviation 'laic.' expands most plausibly to laicali, completing the title De institutione laicali.
- 4 ↩indissimulanter = without dissembling / openly / without pretense; censentur = are judged/held/deemed. Rendered as the terminal quote-range of a cross-reference (usque ad).
- 5 ↩Fragmentary editorial cross-reference (et caetera ut in eodem cap.), parallel to the De institutione laicali citation pattern in the previous section; continuous prose sense is incomplete without the following citation span.
- 6 ↩Citation terminus formula (usque ad + closing words of the referenced span), continuing the incomplete cross-reference begun in s3; likely points to De institutione laicali I.20, as in the neighboring section.
- 7 ↩Citation and verse are truncated mid-parenthesis; the continuation appears in the next section as 'XI, 28)'.
- 8 ↩Citation fragment completing the prior sentence's '(Matth.' (Matthew 11:28–30). Medieval citation often marks the passage by its opening verse.
- 9 ↩modernis temporibus means Jonas's own present age (ninth century), not the later modern era; rendered as 'in our day'.
- 10 ↩Deo annuente rendered as 'with God's help' (granting/consenting); could also be read as 'by God's leave/favor' without changing the main sense.
- 11 ↩quod licet, non tamen expedit closely echoes the Pauline pairing of licet/expedit (1 Cor 6:12; 10:23).
- 12 ↩mucro divinus: literally 'divine sword/blade'; kept as 'divine sword' for judgment force. grassetur: 'runs wild/ravages'.
- 13 ↩'propitiari nolens' rendered as 'unwilling to be propitiated toward them' (refusing to grant reconciliation/mercy), not mere emotional irritability.
- 14 ↩Surface 'Assyriinamque' is awkward/likely corrupt; sense taken as the common medieval onomastic gloss 'Assyrii ... captivantes' (Assyrians = captors).
On the Institution of a King (De institutione regia) companion
Rule yourself daily, not just on retreat
Chosen Portion turns the mirror into a daily practice — a short reading and examining question each morning before you lead anyone.
Chosen Portion makes the mirror daily: the ruler-formation questions this collection preserves become a two-minute morning examination in the app.
- A daily formation reading drawn from centuries of counsel to those in authority
- One pointed examination question a day — two minutes, before the meetings start
- Track your practice over weeks and watch the examined life become a habit